Sacked staff at The Accident Group still to claim £150,000

The text message sent to staff by Mark Langford informing them salaries were not paid

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Former workers of a personal injury firm who were sacked by text message are still to claim more than £150,000.

The 10-year administration of Manchester-based The Accident Group, which collapsed owing an estimated £100m in 2003, came to an end this month.

Around £8.4m has been paid out to many of the 2,500 members of staff who received the text message while their shamed boss, self-made millionaire Mark Langford, was famously pictured sipping champagne on a yacht in the Costa del Sol.

Plagued by depression, he died at the age of 42 when his Opel Corsa hit a crash barrier on the A7 motorway near Marbella, in Spain, in 2007.

Salford Unemployed and Community Resource Centre worked with business recovery specialists Begbies Traynor in a bid to recoup some of the millions owed.

Employees were paid an average of around £1,000 while a total of £17,748,880 was reclaimed and paid to creditors.

Around £8m, 83p in the pound, went to the Inland Revenue and £10,152,287 headed to creditors owed by the defunct company. A total of more than £26m was reclaimed.

But Alec McFadden, from the Salford UCRC, appealed for others who worked there and had not received a payout to come forward for their share of an unclaimed £155,517.

Accident Group staff at a meeting to discuss securing compensation for the sacked staff (Image: Jon Super)

He said: “A lot of these people will be abroad so I would appeal for their relatives who might be reading this to let them know.”

He added: “It was an excellent team effort, with all members of the committee working in unison guided by Begbies Traynor with the Inland Revenue playing a key role.

“The success of the project 83p in the pound is excellent. However, nobody should forget the outrageous manner that the 2,500 workers were dismissed by text message less those 30 minutes before the 11am payment deadline on the last pay day of the month.

“This brought severe hardship and poverty to many families who were then initially refused state benefits because the company had not paid tax or national insurance for over six months.

“A figure of over £8m to the Inland Revenue, this was tax avoidance on a major scale.”

The centre took responsibility for the workers and secured ‘protective awards’ from the government.

Mr Langford set up TAG in 1999 with the infamous line “Where there’s blame, there’s a claim.”

His empire was at one point valued at £100m and he once owned a 24-acre estate in Cheshire.

Mr Langford headed for the sun with his wife Debbie and their two children, when the firm collapsed, leaving chaos in his wake.